Movies
‘Children of the Corn’: Press Release Confirms ‘Runaway’!
After breaking the news of a secret Children of the Corn sequel going into production, we also were able to find out all sorts of story details that link it to the 2009 remake of the same name.
This morning I received an official press release that confirms everything except its connection to Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, although it references Judgment without any mention of Hellraiser, too.
The Oklahoma Film + Music Office (OF+MO), with producer Mike Leahy of Strike Accord and in association with Gatlin Returns, Inc., announced today the beginning of principal photography on Runaway, Bloody Disgusting is told.
As we teased yesterday, Runaway tells the story of a young woman named Ruth, who finds herself pregnant after escaping a murderous child cult in a small Midwestern town. Ruth struggles to spare her son the horrors of her childhood while trying to outrun her past.
And confirming what we were hearing, the film is being directed by John Gulager, who is known for the Feast trilogy, Piranha 3DD, and Zombie Night.
Runaway, which will utilize the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate administered by OF+MO, will be shooting in Oklahoma City and the surrounding area including Luther and Coyle.
This will be Leahy’s third time filming in Oklahoma; he previously produced Great Plains in the fall of 2015, and Judgment in February 2016, both of which utilized the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program.
“Given the opportunity to make two back to back horror films, I chose Oklahoma because of the amazing talent and support I found on my first film here, Great Plains. Working with the same group of people three times in a row is unique in today’s economy, but Oklahoma has proven to be one of the first places I consider when budgeting a film,” said Leahy.
“We are thrilled to work with Strike Accord again,” said OF+MO Director Tava Maloy Sofsky. “To have a producer bring three films to Oklahoma in less than a year is a testament to the effectiveness of our state’s incentive program and speaks volumes about the talent and production value our local cast and crew members bring to film productions working in Oklahoma.”
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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